A month in the Skye #4

Our brand new project “Souffle Vital” was published on December 21st, exactly a month after I came back to France. I feel like I left years ago, or even that I never went at all… like a dream you believe to be true until you wake up, and then suddenly everything becomes blurry and the very memory of it eludes you once you’re out of bed.

But if I close my eyes, and concentrate very hard, then all the images come back, the emotions, the peaceful moments where I would just look out of the window, letting time fly by unnoticed. This contrast is the hardest thing to endure since I came back: back there, time seemed to have no impact on my mood or activities. I was never pressed for time, nothing was impossible. And now I’m runnning and flapping around, missing appointements, pushing back my self-imposed deadlines (even though I said no more self-inflicted guilt…)

I’m glad I got to write this article today. I can remember those moments of deliberate slowness, entirely assumed and relished, with no guilt whatsoever. Especially at the end of this year where all the accumulated delay, the mails for the blog I can’t even read anymore, all the projects adding up (a theatre play, the Breath of Life webzine…) make managing my time even more difficult.

Stress flies away as soon as I think about this month on Skye. After our friends Charlotte and Fred left, we stayed at School House, François drawing and me writing. Our windows offered a breathtaking view on the loch. Clouds passed by and the light played a beautiful show at any hour of the day. We had beautiful sunrises on the mornings, at night, if the sky was clear, the stars were our guides, along with a glass of whiskey…

It rained a lot during our second week there. It sometimes let up for a time, but never for long. Then there was this day were the sun enchanted us and we took the opportunity to leave our works and walk in the Cuillins. The sun bore down so hard that we soon became hot (though it must not have been more than 10C°…) and the Highlands shone in gold, red and brown hues… between light and shadow.

I have to admit that this sunbath felt good. It would probably be the only thing I’d miss if one day I came to live in Scotland. Not the heat and the scorching sun, but the lack of light. At the Marseille airport, a lot of signs proudly announce 300 sunny days a year, while in Scotland the sun is a bit more shy (though it can be quite powerful, our guide in Talisker told us about this half-hour of sun everyone stopped to bask in, and 3/4 of whom got bright red from!). In autumn and winter, the days are very very short… Very quickly, sunrise went from 7h30 to 8h30, and sunset from 18h to 16h… with the sun touching the horizon!

I appreciated a lot the fact that the two of us got to be alone together during our jaunt: we met no other hikers during the whole adventure. We sat down and stayed a long time watching the mountains, feeling the warmth on our skins, the wind barely perceptible, listening to the river below.

My soul tangled itself in the cliffs of these mountains and I’m not sure I got it back whole. A part of it stayed there, and the Highlands call me more and more strongly. To be honest with you, of all my dreams and projects, even above my blog, writing or theatre, going to live there became the most important one. I even think that now all my other projects are only there to make it come true.

NB: I’m still easily stressed but I meant it when I said I’d be slowing down on my writing of blog posts. You’ll have to wait a little to read the rest of my Skye adventures…